s worthless, yet eagerly grasped at, as if they were the
immortal guerdon of virtue.

I have in this declaration insensibly overstepped the limits which I had
determined not to pass: let me be forgiven; for it is hope which hath
carried me forward. In such a mixed assemblage as our age presents, with
its genuine merit and its large overbalance of alloy, I may boldly ask
into what errors, either with respect to person or thing, could a young
man fall, who had sincerely entered upon the course of moral discipline
which has been recommended, and to which the condition of youth, it has
been proved, is favourable? His opinions could no where deceive him
beyond the point up to which, after a season, he would find that it was
salutary for him to have been deceived. For as that man cannot set a
right value upon health who has never known sickness, nor feel the
blessing of ease who has been through his life a stranger to pain, so
can there be no confirmed and passionate love of truth for him who has
not experienced the hollowness of error. Range against each other as
advocates, oppose as combatants, two several intellects, each
strenuously asserting doctrines which he sincerely believes; but the one
contending for the worth and beauty of that garment which the other has
outgrown and cast away. Mark the superiority, the ease, the dignity, on
the side of the more advanced mind, how he overlooks his subject,
commands it from centre to circumference, and hath the same thorough
knowledge of the tenets which his adversary, with impetuous zeal, but in
confusion also, and thrown off his guard at every turn of the argument,
is labouring to maintain. If it be a question of the fine arts (poetry
for instance) the riper mind not only sees that his opponent is
deceived; but, what is of far more importance, sees how he is deceived.
The imagination stands before him with all its imperfections laid open;
as duped by shows, enslaved by words, corrupted by mistaken delicacy and
false refinement, as not having even attended with care to the reports
of the senses, and therefore deficient grossly in the rudiments of its
own power. He has noted how, as a supposed necessary condition, the
understanding sleeps in order that the fancy may dream. Studied in the
history of society, and versed in the secret laws of thought, he can
pass regularly through all the gradations, can pierce infallibly all the
windings, which false taste through ages has pursued, f